Wednesday, April 05, 2006

I Don't Like This

Massachusetts lawmakers approved a first-in-the-nation bill yesterday requiring all residents to have health insurance, a measure Republican Governor Mitt Romney said he will sign.

Under the bill, the state would offer subsidies to private insurers to cover more low-income families.

Companies with more than 10 workers that don't offer health insurance to their workers would pay $295 to the state for each worker, money that will be used to subsidize the health insurance of others.

The bill could be a national model of how to reduce the 16 percent of Americans without health insurance, said Philip J. Edmundson, chief executive officer of William Gallagher Associates, AN INSURER.

I'm sure that "insurer" really cares about your health.

While at least eight other states have bills calling for universal health coverage, Cauchi said, Massachusetts is the first to propose requiring individuals to buy coverage. Residents who can afford insurance and don't purchase it would face income tax penalties after July 2007.

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The legislation was passed under pressure from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. They said they would cut off about $385 million a year in funding for care of the poor if the state didn't enact reforms by July 1.

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The bill will help businesses that have been providing health insurance to their workers, Edmundson said.

Wow. Really. You're kidding?

It will help them...by moving us closer to the day when businesses will no longer provide insurance.

Remember that tax cut - and all the things they told you to do with it?